The Return of Prop 13
Public education in California is in bad trouble.
One reason we come up short in the schools department is that California is faced with the task of educating an enormous number of non-English speakers. But the other, larger reason - and one that makes the first so much more difficult - I'm blaming on Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann. Back in 1978 these two gentlemen staged what they called a "taxpayer's revolt," and put a proposition on the ballot that was supposed to have made property taxes more equitable - Proposition 13.
Yes, the disposition of property taxes - the pool of money that paid for most local and municipal governments, and upon which public schools still depend - needed to be fixed.
Before Prop. 13, you paid property taxes based on the assessed value of your property. Say in 1960 you and your neighbor each bought identical houses on adjacent lots for $10,000. Property taxes were about one percent, so you each paid the local county tax collector $100 a year.
By 1975, the demand for houses in your area has risen and your neighbor decides to move. He sells his house for $40,000. The new owners now pay $400 a year in property taxes. The county assessor, who makes an annual review of the real estate values in the county, says that your house, identical to your neighbor's, is now worth $40,000, and your taxes go up to $400 a year, too.
To Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Gann this seemed unfair. So, on the June 1978 California ballot, they authored a bill that, if approved by voters, would roll back assessed values to 1976 levels, and make it illegal for your property to be reassessed for tax purposes until it was actually sold. Thus, the new owners would pay the higher tax rate, but your taxes would stay roughly the same.
For retirees on a fixed income this was important. They could now plan their future without having to worry about dramatic unforeseen property tax increases. The impact on public education, though, was foreseen, and the measure was bitterly fought.
Proposition 13 passed, getting 65% of the vote. Schools almost imediately felt the blow, and California started its slide from having the best schools in the country to near the bottom.
And property taxes? 27 years later we have a situation where you, who have lived in your house since 1960, pay taxes at near the 1976 level - around $400 a year. Your neighbor's house has been sold a couple of times, most recently to a young family for $400,000. They pay $4,000 a year in property tax. There are many who who say that this is as inequitable as the old method. But overall, it meant a decrease of 35 to 55 percent (depending on who is doing the figuring) in tax revenues to local coffers.
To me, the new tax sceme may or may not be a good thing. I would think there should be a way to tax property that would be more fair, but that's not my major beef with Prop. 13.
Schools are hurting. I know this, because I have a son in public school, and I volunteer on various committees. I see already-underpaid teachers, who haven't had a raise in years, buying books and materials for their students out of their own pockets. Textbooks in science are years out of date, but still being sent out for repairs (at $5 per book) during the summer because they can't afford new ones. Art, music and drama classes are being completely eliminated from the curriculum.
At the beginning of the year, our high school's award-winning band director announced that the only way he could do his job was by having a paid assistant to look after intrument donations, repairs and so on. His full-time assistant was paid $30,000 a year, and it could not come out of the school budget - it would have to be raised privately.
A group of parents organized a "Blue and White Ball" fundraiser - an evening of catered food, a "casino", a raffle and silent auction of donated goods and services. It was a great success, and we were able to raise the money to keep our director and his assistant. But it was not without feeling a little like playing into the hands of the taxpayer rebels. See, they say, private fund raising works; there's no need for taxes. I pity the less-well-off districts that need to raise money to keep programs.
So, like many counties in California last week, we had a measure on the ballot to raise the parcel tax. Ours was to increase the tax on each parcel in the district by $26. That's $2.17 a month to keep arts programs and libraries open. 65.5 percent of the voters in my district voted in favor of the parcel tax - but it was defeated. Why? Because the third part of the Prop. 13 measure that we passed in 1978 - by a simple majority - required that any future tax increases have to be approved by two-thirds of the vote.
Out the window goes rule by majority. Our $26 parcel tax was canned because of the wishes of 35 percent of the voters. Similar measures all across the state lost by similarly close counts.
In the run-up to the election - and I thought it would pass, by the way - I talked with several people who planned to vote no. Their position was, why should they have to pay a tax for a service they don't use and don't care about? Let the people who use the schools pay for it. My attempts to explain that everyone, including themselves, benefits from having a good education system fell on deaf ears. This provincial and dim attitude is one of the reasons the European Union, where education is taxpayer funded through college, is leaving the US behind.
What's needed is another referendum - that will only need a majority vote to pass - to return to the days of majority rule. It's too easy to get a thrid of the people to oppose progress.
5:19:40 PM 
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